Pro-choice

As you have no doubt heard, there have been serious limitations to abortion rights and access in several states south of the border. If you are like me, this fills you with rage and despair. Not only is this a clear expression of sexism and limiting choices, freedom, and the well-being and health for and of women, but it is also a serious sign of the blurring between church and state. After all, the main push for anti-abortion, anti-choice legislation is the religious right.

I care very much about ending sexism. I care very much about the separation between church and state. These are my values as a person who is informed and guided by the ethics of Humanistic Judaism. In our secular, cultural expression of Judaism, we make justice central, and we take seriously the idea that religion and tradition get a vote but never a veto over what we decide to be our ethics, morals, and values.

Many Jewish groups and organizations have statements supporting pro-choice policies. It is a bit of a no-brainer that our branch of Judaism, always concerned with gender justice from the beginning, has one. Here is the statement from the Society for Humanistic Judaism: http://www.shj.org/humanistic-jewish-life/issues-and-resolutions/choice/. Interestingly, I saw similar statements issued from many Jewish groups, even from the orthodox world. For example, the one from the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance includes this: “JOFA’s position has consistently been that women and couples should consult their physicians and personal halakhic advisers in making decisions about abortion and reproductive health care without the involvement of the government. We support every woman’s legal right to make decisions about and have control over her own body.”

Of special note to Jews is the way that lawmakers and other anti-choice pundits and protestors liken abortion to the Holocaust. This is a serious appropriation of a history that harmed Jews, Queer folks, the Roma people, and many others. To use this history to limit the rights of women (who comprise at least half of world Jewry), is greatly offensive.

If you are interested in learning more about Judaism and abortion, this is a useful article: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abortion-in-jewish-thought/. Most of the Jewish world is in favour of pro-choice governmental policies, because we prize life above all else and, in this case, the life of the woman carrying the fetus is seen as the greater life to protect. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is that we know there is no way to stop abortion, only to stop legal and safe abortion, and that without access to legal and safe abortion many women will be harmed and killed.

I know we Canadians can sometimes feel immune from the effects of American politics, but we are very close neighbours indeed. Just as the Trump presidency has emboldened white supremacists, we see the same uptick in hate in Canada. Now that there is a push to overturn legal abortion in the US, we see Canadian politicians beginning to attend and hold rallies to do the same here. We need to be vigilant and make sure all politicians from all parties know that we will not stand for a rollback of rights for women.

As a Humanist, as Jew, as a feminist, and as a concerned citizen, I’m going to be out there being loud on this issue. I hope you’ll join me.

Till next week,

Denise